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Sunday, April 22, 2012

Happy Birthday Jack Benteen: ‘Extreme Prejudice’ Turns 25

The Wild Bunch
didn’t quite seem like a game changer when it was released in 1969. The film was met with mixed reviews and
mediocre box office. Despite stumbling
out of the proverbial gate, Sam Peckinpah’s western became one of the most
influential films of all time. Surely
among its earliest admirers were filmmakers Walter Hill and John Milius. Hill collaborated with Peckinpah three years
later on the Steve McQueen vehicle The
Getaway, which became Peckinpah’s biggest hit. Indeed, Hill’s own approach to filmmaking owed
much to that of Peckinpah. Nearly 20
years after the release of The Wild Bunch,
Hill decided to pay proper tribute to his deceased colleague John Milius’s help. Their efforts yielded the aptly titled Extreme Prejudice.

In high school, Jack Benteen (Nick Nolte) and Cash Bailey
(Powers Booth) were the best of friends.
In adulthood, they find themselves on opposite sides of the law. Benteen is now a hardnosed Texas Ranger who
does his job to the letter. Once a
police informant, Bailey is now a powerful drug trafficker who lords over his
empire from a hacienda in Mexico.
Needless to say, the friendship is now greatly strained. Things intensify when Cash tries to win back
his former lover Sarita (Maria Conchita Alonzo), who is now in a serious relationship
with Jack. As the drama between the
three plays out to its logical conclusion, DEA agent Paul Hackett (Michael
Ironside) shows up in town with a clandestine U.S. Army unit. Under Hackett’s command, the unit performs black
ops within Benteen’s jurisdiction. When
their activities run afoul of the Ranger, Jack finds himself in the middle of
both a deadly love triangle and a covert military operation. Both situations can only end in bloodshed.

Extreme Prejudice
began life in the mid 1970’s as a as a story idea by John Milius and Fred
Rexer. Milius wrote the first draft of
the screenplay. Deric Washburn’s and
Harry Kiener’s contributions likely came later on down the line via subsequent
drafts. British screenwriter Lukas
Heller also made some contributions went uncredited. Whether or not director Walter Hill was involved
from the outset is unknown, but seeing as how he and Milius seem to be on the
same wave length, it’s a strong possibility that he was there from the start. The work of John Milius has always had a
militaristic bend, which was right in place with the 1980’s. In the wake of Rambo: First Blood Part II, Hollywood action films began to
fetishize war heroes. Meanwhile, Walter
Hill’s sensibilities were steeped in different brand of lore: the old west. Extreme
Prejudice neatly consolidates two different American mythologies into a
gritty package.

One thing that Hill and Milius share is a healthy distrust
of authority. Extreme Prejudice unfolds under a cloud of post-Vietnam/Watergate
paranoia. Hackett’s unit operates
similarly to Pikes Wild Bunch, albeit with paramilitary discipline. The major difference is that the latter are over-the-hill
desperadoes, while the former as supposedly serving a higher purpose. The Wild Bunch plans to keep the money they
steal, while Hackett’s unit is supposedly committing robbery in an attempt to
seize Cash Bailey’s drug profits and records of his bank accounts. In reality, the unit is having the wool
pulled over their eyes by Hackett. They
aren’t actually serving their country, but helping to make their commanding
officer a very rich man. Like the troops
in Nam, these soldiers are merely cannon fodder.

The Wild Bunch
told a tale about the end of the west, and the death of a desperado. Extreme
Prejudice shows a modern America where the violence and values of the old
west are alive and well. The drug trade,
like the prohibition era before it, caused a revival of desperado culture in
urban and rural America. Law enforcement
agents like Jack Benteen found themselves becoming cannon fodder for the war on
drugs. Ironically, Extreme Prejudice shows both civilians and soldiers to be naive
enough to think that war is something that only occurs on foreign soil. An exchange between two members of Hackett’s
unit sums it up nicely:

Sgt. Charles Biddle:
Command is not supposed to put us in those kind of situations!

Sgt. Larry McRose:
Command *always* puts us in those situations! What the hell do you think we're
here for?!

Sgt. Charles Biddle: Yeah,
it still don't change the fact that my buddy's in a body bag. And he ain't in
Lebanon or Honduras. Fuckin' Texas.

While Hill may have a love for the earlier forms of the
western, the variations it went through during the 1960’s clearly had a huge
impact on him. Though Nolte supposedly
based his character on real life Texas Ranger Haynie Joaquin Jackson, it’s
clear that Nolte is also channeling the ghost of Blonde aka “The Man With No
Name” from Sergio Leone’s Dollars
trilogy. Even the film itself, while
clearly paying homage to The Wild Bunch,
also owes a huge debt to spaghetti westerns.
The characters are covered in layers of sweat and sport five o’clock
shadows. Like The Wild Bunch and Bonnie and
Clyde, Extreme Prejudice explodes in an orgy of violence during its closing
set piece. Also like The Wild Bunch, that carnage is rendered
with a meticulous eye. Dark burgundy
stage blood explodes and pores from squibs.
Hill doesn’t improve on Peckinpah’s use of slow motion and cutting, but
he employs such elements undeniable effect.

Extreme Prejudice
was released at the height of action cinema’s golden era, coming out in the
same calendar year as Lethal Weapon, Predator, and Robocop. It’s not in the
same class as those other films, which are now considered standard bearers of
the action genre. It’s also not a great or
original film by any means. However, it’s
arguably a more elemental and pure example of its genre than any of the others mentioned. It’s not a hybrid, a buddy flick, or a high
concept vehicle. It doesn’t attempt to
reach beyond its target demo. It draws a
connection between a modern film genre with one of its direct ancestors, and binds
them together. A few years ago a remake
of The Wild Bunch was announced. How unnecessary, when Walter Hill did a
perfectly respectful one just 25 years ago.

*Check out this trailer, featuring the voice of Don LaFontaine and the Jerry Goldsmith's score from Rambo: First Blood Part II. It plays like an advertisement for a new line of militaristic action figures.

About Me

Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Scott Wilson, deep thinker and blogger extraordinaire. I'm also a published author and proud father. Last but certainly not least, I'm a single (IE Available), but I'm definitely looking to change that. My life is an ongoing work in progress, and I'm always looking to improve.